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UBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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LOST POND 



By 

HENRY ABBOTT 



NEW YORK 

1915 






Copyright 1915 
by 
HENRY ABBOTT 



DEC 20 1315 

i)CI.A416981 



Lost Pond 

LOST POND'* was a tradition, a 
myth. It had never been seen 
-^ by any living person. Two dead 
men, it was alleged, had visited it on 
several occasions while they were yet 
living. 

Wonderful tales were told about that 
pond for which many persons had 
hunted, but which no one of the pres- 
ent generation had ever been able to 
find. 

Every guide in Long Lake township 
talked about Lost Pond and repeated 
the legends, which through the pass- 
ing years had probably lost none of 
their original enticements. Many of 
these guides had even got the stories 
at first hand from Captain Parker and 
Mitchel Sabattis. 

3 



Captain Parker, a famous hunter 
and trapper, had died about ten years 
ago at the good old age of ninety-four 
years. Mitchel Sabattis, an Indian, 
who had married a white woman and 
had brought up a family of husky 
half-breeds, was the first settler in 
the Long Lake country. He was a 
highly respected citizen, and a moun- 
tain and a United States post office 
had been named after him. Sabattis 
lived to be a very old man. Many be- 
lieved him to be past a hundred years 
when he died, but the family Bible 
was not available to prove the date 
of his birth. 

Now, all of the natives knew that 
Lost Pond was somewhere on Seward 
Mountain, and they apparently be- 
lieved that the best fishing place in 
the State was right in that pond. "By 
Mighty ! that pond was just alive with 



speckled trout — big ones. You could 
catch all you wanted there in a few 
minutes. The water fairly boiled with 
the jumping fish. Now, if we could 
only find it," etc. 

To the layman it would seem, pos- 
sibly a difficult, but certainly not an 
impossible task, to find that lost pond ; 
and if it was such a remarkable fish- 
ing and hunting place as tradition 
painted it, why had not some one 
combed out that mountain and recov- 
ered the pond? 

Seward Mountain, seen from a dis- 
tance of ten or fifteen miles, looked 
like a hogback ridge. A nearer view 
disclosed the fact that it included sev- 
eral peaks and ridges, and really cov- 
ered a lot of ground. The highest peak 
was perhaps not more than twenty- 
five hundred feet above the lake. But 
if one could draw a straight line 



through its base eastward from Ra- 
quette River to the foot of Sawtooth 
Mountain, the line would measure 
about twelve miles. If a similar line 
could be stretched northward from 
Cold River to Ampersand Lake, it 
would be about eight miles. 

One cannot, however, always go 
through a mountain. It is usually nec- 
essary to go over or around it; and 
following up and down the ridges, 
through ravines and around swamps 
and other obstacles, the travel dis- 
tances above named might be doubled, 
and then some. The mountain was 
covered with forest, and there was not 
a human habitation on it or within 
many miles of it in any direction. 
Some lumbering had been done along 
Cold River and several of its tributary 
creeks, but the higher portions were 
untouched and the heavy spruce and 



hemlock cover looked black from up 
the lake. 

Giving proper consideration to these 
facts and knowing the Long Lake 
guides as well as I did, I could readily 
understand that it might be less 
strenuous to tell the marvelous stories 
about Lost Pond than it would be to 
go up in the Seward country and 
search out the pond. Then there was 
always the possibility that too much 
investigation might spoil a good story. 

Ever since childhood I have pos- 
sessed that very human characteristic 
of wanting that which is forbidden, 
longing for what is just out of reach; 
and when a thing is said to be impos- 
sible, I at once have an intense desire 
to undertake to do that thing. 

Now, there was good trout fishing 
in many of the ponds and streams 
tributary to Long Lake which were 

7 



comparatively easy to reach ; but this 
lost pond which I had heard so much 
about was so "impossible to find" that 
I was possessed with an irresistible 
longing to find it, to see what it looked 
like, to fish in it. So I discussed the 
matter with Bige, who, with some 
show of reluctance, agreed to assist. 

Bige and I had made many camping 
excursions up in the Cold River coun- 
try; had followed its crooked course 
about fifteen miles upstream ; had ex- 
plored and fished a number of its trib- 
utary creeks on the Santanoni side. 

Cold River carries the drainage 
from Santanoni Mountain and foot- 
hills on its left bank and on its right 
receives the flow from the eastern 
and southern slopes of Mount Seward. 

One day in July, when Bige and I 
were up on Santanoni, from an open- 
ing through the trees above a ledge of 

8 



rocks we looked cross the valley to 
Seward, studied the contour of its 
basins, peaks and ridges, and agreed 
upon the spot where Lost Pond ought 
to be found. We also determined upon 
a route which we should take to reach 
it, and appointed the following Tues- 
day as the time when we should make 
our start. 

Monday night we packed our duffel 
so that we might make an early start 
in the morning. We took our small 
light-weight tent, blankets, aluminum 
cooking utensils, fishing rods, and food 
for three days. If we should get some 
fish the grub might be stretched across 
four days. 

We expected some strenuous tramp- 
ing, so determined to "go light'* and 
omitted many things we usually take 
on our trips; but when we "weighed 
in," Bige's pack tipped the scales at 

9 



fifty-two pounds and mine weighed 
thirty-seven. I am not selfish in such 
matters, so gave Bige all the heavy 
things. 

With our two packs stowed amid- 
ships, Bige in the bow with a pair of 
oars and I in the stern wielding a pad- 
dle, we got away in the morning just 
as the sun broke over East Inlet Moun- 
tain and gilded the summit of Sugar 
Loaf on the opposite side of the lake. 

The early birds greeted us with a 
chorus of song, seeming to wish us 
luck as we made good speed down the 
lake, passing Owl's-Head Mountain on 
the left, Sabattis on the right, and 
farther down Blueberry, Kempshall 
and Buck mountains, while Santanoni 
and Seward loomed up in the distance. 

It is about fourteen miles to the 
foot of the lake and five miles farther 
down the outlet, through "Lost Chan- 

10 




a 

ho 

C 



nel," to the place on Calkins Creek 
where we left our boat in the shade 
of some balsams. 

We now shouldered our packs and 
started on the strenuous and interest- 
ing part of our undertaking. Follow- 
ing up Calkins Valley about six miles, 
we passed, at intervals of two or three 
miles, three abandoned lumber camps, 
the log buildings being in all stages of 
decay from long disuse, many of them 
with roofs caved in and overgrown 
with weeds and bushes. 

A few rods beyond the last log 
camp, while pushing my way through 
the high grass and bushes in a log- 
road, I almost stepped upon a spotted 
fawn which jumped up under my nose 
and turned to stare at me with his sol- 
emn-looking eyes which seemed much 
too large for his head. The little fellow 
was apparently about a month old, 

12 



and was as frisky and awkward in his 
movements as a young puppy. He had 
no doubt been hidden there by his 
mother, who had warned him to lie 
low till she returned, to look out for 
enemies, and especially to beware of 
any animal that walks upon two legs. 
He was now uncertainly wavering be- 
tween fear and curiosity, and with his 
head turned and his eyes fastened 
upon me, he stumbled clumsily away 
through the high grass directly into 
Bige's outstretched arms. 

Here was now a situation not down 
on our programme. We had captured 
a live deer. We were not intending to 
start a menagerie or to stock a zoolog- 
ical park. We were out in search of a 
pond that had been mislaid on a moun- 
tain. We could not very well carry the 
deer up the mountain while pursuing 
our explorations, and we had no idea 

13 



that he could be made to walk in our 
company so far as we should have to 
go. Moreover, neither Bige nor I was 
properly equipped to feed an infant; 
so we put him back in his grassy bed, 
patted him on the head, advised him 
to stay there until his mother re- 
turned, and proceeded upon our jour- 
ney. 

Half a mile farther on we left the 
log-road, turned sharply to the right, 
and climbed up the steep slope of one 
of the foothills. Passing the ridge, we 
now came into a section of the forest 
which had never been visited by the 
lumberman's axe. The tall spruces and 
hemlocks interspersed here and there 
with yellow birch and maples cast 
deep shadows, and the forest floor was 
as free from underbrush as if cleared 
by a landscape gardener. This was 
what poets and nature writers call the 

14 



"primeval forest." Also, traveling with 
a pack on one's back was much easier 
here than in the lumbered country. 

A spring of cold clear water with a 
rivulet flowing from it down the slope 
reminded us that it was lunch time, 
and that this was an ideal place to eat 
it. 

After lunch we took up our burdens 
and continued our journey eastward 
until about two o'clock, when we had 
crossed the fourth high ridge from 
Calkins Valley and dropped into a 
deep basin. This was the valley Bige 
and I had located when we surveyed 
the country from over on Santanoni. 
This was the place where Lost Pond 
ought to be; but there was no pond 
here, lost or otherwise. 

We sat down to talk it over. Bige 
said "Le's go home." But I outvoted 
him and we continued on, taking a 

15 



northeasterly course, which we fol- 
lowed for what seemed about five 
miles. When we had passed through 
a valley between two high peaks we 
made a sort of ox-bow curve around 
the one to the right and there laid a 
straight course with our compass back 
in the direction from which we had 
come but a mile or more south of our 
outward route. 

During the afternoon we encoun- 
tered about all the different kinds of 
forest travel that it is possible to find 
anywhere. There were steep rocky 
ledges which had to be climbed ; cedar 
swamps which must be negotiated; 
several acres of burnt ground now 
covered with a dense growth of pop- 
lar and wild-cherry saplings; black- 
berry bushes as high as one's head — 
oceans of them; balsam groves with 
deep beds of moss for a carpet ; "witch- 

16 



hopple," which tangles one's feet and 
gives one a hard fall at unexpected 
moments ; there were steep climbs up 
and steep slides down ; and there were 
delightful stretches of "big woods," 
but always the charm of variety. 

We were too intent upon our quest 
and made too much noise in our trav- 
els to see much wild life ; the animals 
always had ample notice of our ap- 
proach and always had convenient 
hiding places. 

About six o'clock we came upon a 
noisy brook which was tumbling down 
out of the mountains through a steep 
valley. The bed of the stream was 
filled with boulders, and there were 
numerous short falls and rapids. We 
heard the noise of the brook long 
before it came into view, and Bige 
promptly named it "Roaring Brook." 

There was something suggestive 

17 



about this brook, and we sat down and 
discussed it while resting. It was a 
dry season; there had been no rain 
for two weeks. Surface drainage could 
not account for all the water coming 
down that brook. It might come from 
one of the swamps we had passed 
through earlier in the day. It would 
have to be a very large spring or a lot 
of small ones to keep up the flow of 
that volume of water. It might be the 
outlet of a pond. We decided to follow 
upstream and settle the question of 
its source. 

About a half-mile up, we came upon 
a level stretch of quiet water, but 
there was a noise of splashing in the 
stream ahead. Cautiously we crept for- 
ward and peering through a clump of 
alders saw an old black bear and one 
cub, wallowing in the shallow water. 
Neither Bige nor I had lost any bear, 

18 



old or young, and we had no intention 
of attacking with our only weapon — a 
fishing rod — an old mother bear in the 
presence of her child ; so without a con- 
ference, but with a common thought, 
we carefully backed up a few rods and 
hid behind a clump of bushes through 
the branches of which we watched the 
perfoiTnance. 

We were reminded of an old sow 
and one pig wallowing in a mudhole. 
The old bear lay down in the water 
and rolled over in it while the cub 
climbed upon his mother and took 
headers off of her back. They were 
evidently taking their "weekly tub" 
and were enjoying it immensely. 

After some ten minutes of this mov- 
ing-picture act, the old bear climbed 
out on the bank and shook herself; 
the cub followed, stood on his head 
and rolled and tumbled about on the 

19 




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o 

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a 
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V 

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9 

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grassy bank until his mother gave 
a commanding grunt and started off 
into the woods with the cub following 
at her heels. 

About twenty rods farther up- 
stream we arrived at the source of 
Roaring Brook. It was a beautiful 
sheet of glassy water set in a bowl in 
the hills, with the bowl tilted on one 
side until the water spilled over its 
lower edge into the brook. The pond 
was about two hundred yards in di- 
ameter. Three deer were standing in 
the shallow water on the opposite 
edge. The water was clear and cold as 
ice. We both dropped our packs and 
shouted in chorus, "This is where we 
sleep!" 

It was getting late, so we hurried 
our preparations for making camp. I 
undertook to set up the tent while 
Bige collected a quantity of dry moss 

21 



for a bed. This he peeled off of a ledge 
of rocks on the hillside in great slabs 
that were three to four inches thick. 
Over a double layer of moss he placed 
balsam boughs, sticking the butt end 
of each bough through the moss in a 
sloping position and making one course 
of boughs overlap another like shin- 
gles on a roof. The result was most 
satisfactory. Bige is a wonder in mak- 
ing a camp bed. 

While hunting material for tent 
pegs and poles I noticed a curious rec- 
tangular-shaped hillock of green moss 
a short distance from the shore of the 
pond. Kicking the mossy covering 
away, there was disclosed the rotted 
logs of what had many years ago been 
a camp about twelve feet square. A 
dozen yards away was a moss-covered 
log which seemed flattened on top and 
tapered at both ends. Scraping away 

22 



the moss and rolling over the log, I 
found a "dugout canoe." This had been 
hewn from a pine log about thirty 
inches in diameter and sixteen feet 
long. The canoe was in fair condition, 
but heavy and somewhat decayed at 
one end. Having finished our tent and 
bed, we rolled the canoe down to the 
water's edge and undertook to put it 
in order for use. To insure its float- 
ing with two heavy men aboard, we 
cut and trimmed out two dry spruces 
about six inches in diameter and 
lashed them, one on either side of the 
canoe and against two smaller cross- 
pieces placed above to keep the string- 
pieces near the gunwale. The cross- 
pieces also served the purpose of seats. 
For many years I have carried in 
the bottom of the pack, when on 
camping trips, a coil of small rope or 
heavy twine and have often found it 



very useful. It fitted in perfectly on 
this occasion. 

The dusk of evening was now upon 
us, so we hurriedly pushed our pi- 
rogue-raft into the water and climbed 
aboard. Bige poled our craft out to- 
ward the center of the pond while I 
strung up my rod and put a white 
miller on the end of the leader. We 
had heard splashing and saw ripples 
on the smooth surface of the water 
before leaving shore, indicating the 
presence of fish of some kind. At the 
first cast I hooked one, and after a 
short struggle Bige brought him 
aboard with the landing net. 

Then followed twenty minutes of 
the swiftest and most exciting bit of 
trout fishing that I have ever experi- 
enced. I could have hooked three or 
four at a time if I had put on that 
many flies, but one kept me busy. 

^4 



With every cast two or three trout 
would make a rush for the fly, and 
they would fight one another for pos- 
session of it. Even after one fish was 
securely hooked and was struggling 
for his freedom others would appear 
and try to take the fly away from 
him. Bige said **the trout climbed out, 
stood on their tails and reached for 
the fly long before it hit the water." 

It was now quite dark and we were 
losing more fish than we saved. It was 
impossible to see the landing net, and 
we often knocked them off the hook 
when trying to scoop them up. We had 
enough fish for supper, so we decided 
to leave some of them for morning, 
went ashore, built a fire, cooked our 
trout and bacon, and ate supper by 
the light of the fire. 

I have fished for trout for twenty 
years, more or less, and during that 

25 



time caught a great many under vary- 
ing conditions. It has been my fortune 
to catch much larger trout than any 
we saw in this pond, though none of 
these would weigh less than a pound 
each. But never before nor since have 
I met any more sporty fish than these. 
They were, moreover, the most beau- 
tifully marked of any trout of any 
variety I have ever seen. They lived 
in ice-water in midsummer. They were 
muscular and like chain lightning in 
action. 

With every cast I experienced all 
the excitement, all the thrills, and 
went through all the strategic maneu- 
vers that a nature writer would de- 
scribe in twelve hundred words. 

The pond had no visible inlet, but a 
considerable quantity of water was 
flowing out of it every minute. This 
must be replenished through some 

26 



subterraneous passage, and the water 
doubtless filtered through an enor- 
mous field of ice that had been buried 
under millions of tons of rock and 
earth for countless ages — since the 
glacial period, when the mountain slid 
down from the arctic regions into its 
present position. 

Bige and I discussed it at supper, 
and that is how we accounted for the 
peculiar conditions. We were also 
agreed that there could now be no 
doubt that this was the pond of Sabat- 
tis-Parker fame. The stories fitted 
well with the facts. Some one surely 
had been here before and a long time 
ago, else how could the ruins of the 
camp and the moss-covered dugout be 
satisfactorily explained ? 

That night Bige and I went to bed 
with clear consciences. We were at 
peace with all the world. We had put 

98 



in a long and strenuous day, had met 
and overcome many obstacles and dif- 
ficulties, and had accomplished some- 
thing worth while. We had recovered 
and put back on the map a pond which 
had been lost for more than thirty 
years. Incidentally, we had had a lot 
of fun in doing it. A pair of hermit 
thrushes holding converse with each 
other across the valley and high over 
our heads sang us to sleep. 

We were awake in the morning be- 
fore the sun and in our skiff out on 
the pond casting with great care our 
most alluring flies. We whipped every 
square inch of that pond. We spent 
two hours and a half on it, used every 
fly in the book, and never got a rise. 
We never even saw a trout big or lit- 
tle. We could have seen them had they 
been there. It was not more than three 
feet to the bottom in the deepest part, 



and we could see the bottom and every- 
thing, animate and inanimate, in the 
water. The shoals of trout we had 
seen and heard — some of which we 
had eaten — the night before, had dis- 
appeared utterly and completely. Bige 
said "They have gone back into the 
ice-chest." 

The conviction finally forced itself 
through our dense intellectual domes 
that the trout in Lost Pond gave at- 
tention to business only at night. This 
was a night fish pond. We should have 
to wait until night for another bite. 

Slowly and sadly we poled back to 
camp. The sight that met us on land- 
ing, to employ a stock literary expres- 
sion, "would have made the stoutest 
heart quail." It would surely be stating 
it mildly to say that we were amazed. 

The pack-basket which contained 
our provisions we had left standing 

30 



just inside the tent flap. It had been 
dragged out and was now lying on its 
side several feet from the tent, while 
remnants of its contents were scat- 
tered over the forest carpet in every 
dii-ection. A bag of flour, intended for 
flapjacks, had been ripped open and 
the flour thoroughly mixed with leaves 
and dirt, ditto the sugar and coffee. 
Butter was nicely spread over a ground 
area about six feet square, while a 
half -eaten loaf of bread was floating 
in the water. Potatoes and onions had 
been chewed up and "the chawins" 
spat out on the ground. To add a touch 
of the artistic to the picture of de- 
struction, the yolks of a dozen eggs 
gave a dab of yellow to the southeast 
corner. Porcupine quills were sticking 
in the splints of the basket and were 
liberally sprinkled over the ground, 
while disturbance in the leaves marked 

31 







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The Robbers 



the path where the slab of bacon had 
been dragged away. 

We followed the bacon trail several 
rods back into the woods to the foot 
of a small birch tree, where there re- 
mained some scraps of bacon rind. 
Calmly sitting on a limb of this tree, 
about thirty feet up, we saw the two 
burglarious villains licking the bacon 
grease off of their paws and faces 
while emitting occasional grunts of 
pleasure and satisfaction. 

We threw sticks and stones at the 
porcupines and made several hits, 
knocking out some quills, but could 
not bring them down; so I climbed 
another tree to about their level and 
shot them — with a camera. Their pic- 
ture now adorns the rogues' gallery, 
where it is *'held up to the scorn and 
contempt" of all campers, and espe- 
cially as a warning to all "tenderfeet." 



Returning to camp, we looked care- 
fully over the wreckage for something 
fit to eat. We found "the makings" of 
one pot of coffee left in the torn bag, 
two unbroken eggs, and a pint bottle 
of maple syrup. 

Bige filled the coffeepot, hung it on 
a spring pole which rested across a 
log with the rear end sticking in the 
ground, laid the two eggs on the log 
where the spring pole crossed it, and 
started a fire, while I went for an 
armful of dry firewood. Returning, I 
clumsily stumbled over the ground 
end of the spring pole, upset the coffee 
in the fire and knocked the eggs off 
the log. For a moment I watched the 
contents of those two eggshells trickle 
down through the leaves and moss, 
then I looked up at Bige. 

I am sure he had profanity in his 
heart ; I saw it in his eye. What Bige 

34 



really said was "Sufferin* bald-headed 
Mike!" 

We sat on the log several minutes 
before any attempt at conversation 
was made; then Bige said, "Le's go 
home." The next remark logically was, 
"Which way?" 

It would have been difficult and im- 
practicable to return the way we had 
come. We knew that, generally speak- 
ing, home lay in a southwesterly di- 
rection from where we sat, but we 
were uncertain whether Lost Pond 
was on the northern or the southern 
side of the high points in the Seward 
group of mxountains. 

However, one of the first principles 
of woodcraft which I learned while 
still in the primary class is that "wa- 
ter always runs downhill," and that if 
one follows a brook down far enough 
it will surely lead to a larger stream, 

35 



and it in turn will finally take one to 
a lake. It may be a long and circuitous 
route, but when one has lost his bear- 
ings in the forest, that is generally a 
safe rule to follow. Also in a lumbered 
country, where water is the only 
means of transportation for logs, all 
log-roads run downhill and ultimately 
lead to river or lake. We felt reason- 
ably certain, therefore, that if we fol- 
lowed down Roaring Brook and should 
cross a log-road at any point, it would 
be quite safe to leave the brook and 
continue down the log-road. Moreover, 
at this place the brook was flowing 
south and its waters must ultimately 
reach Long Lake or its outlet. 

So we packed up and started down- 
stream. It was not a cheerful proces- 
sion, but our packs were lighter than 
when we came up the hills the day 
before. 

36 



In due time and without incident 
worthy of mention, we reached Cold 
River and later Calkins Creek, found 
our boat, and late in the afternoon 
were pushing slowly up the lake when 
we were met by a violent thunder 
shower. Before we could reach an 
island, turn over our boat and crawl 
under it, we were soaked to the skin. 

Half an hour later, when the storm 
had passed, we went around to the 
other side of the island where there 
was an unoccupied open camp. Here 
we built a big fire and spent two hours 
drying our clothes. 

We ate our breakfast in the kitchen 
of Deerland Lodge at about nine 
o'clock that night. It was a good 
breakfast. 



37 



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